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CPH Fashion Week: Who to know and what to do

From exclusive runway shows to more accessible free events throughout the city, Copenhagen Fashion Week has something to offer for anyone with a passion for fashion. Scandinavia Standard breaks down the highlights and guides you through the August 3-8 fashion takeover.

Published: 3 August 2014 10:17 CEST
CPH Fashion Week: Who to know and what to do
Photo: Freya McOmish, Scandinavia Standard
Copenhagen Fashion Week, which begins on Sunday and runs through Friday, is a biannual celebration and display of the seasonal collections of fashion brands through runway shows, industry fairs, showrooms and events. Our partners at Scandinavia Standard take you through who to know and what to do during the week.
 
Names to know
Copenhagen Fashion Week (CPHFW) hosts mainly Scandinavian, and specifically Danish, fashion houses. The big name runway shows include By Malene Birger, Designers Remix, Bruuns Bazaar, Han Kjøbenhavn, Henrik Vibskov and Baum und Pferdgarten. These brands are both internationally renowned and extremely popular within Denmark. These shows (and their after parties) are invitation-only.
 
There’s also a contingent of well-known, respected but largely Denmark-based fashion houses that are more Scandinavian and artistic in nature such as Barbara I Gongini, Asger Juel Larsen and David Andersen.
 
Emerging designers like Maikel Tawadros and Nicklas Kunz represent the up-and-coming names in Scandinavian and global design. They’re a bit off the beaten track and entirely worth checking out.
 
Fashion fairs
Fashion fairs are an easy way to see a lot of labels at once, get a sense of the latest season from the bigger names and learn about some new ones while meeting the faces behind the brands.  Copenhagen International Fashion Fair (CIFF) at Bella Center is the largest of these. Vision and Gallery are known as smaller and less commercial spaces. If you’re looking for an afternoon of perusing racks of-the-moment clothes, the CPHFW fairs are the place for you.
 
Copenhagen Fashion Festival
Most people won’t go to the exclusive runway shows. Or the fairs, for that matter (let’s be real: if you’re not into fashion there is nothing more boring than a fashion industry fair). But CPHFW is a cultural event with many components. The most accessible of these is the Copenhagen Fashion Festival (CPHFF). Stacked with free events throughout the city, there’s a range of ways to celebrate fashion including sales, store-openings and more. For more information on CPHFF, see here or download their app.
 
Whether you’re the editor of a fashion magazine or just a person who wears clothes, there’s something for everyone to enjoy during Copenhagen Fashion Week. If nothing else, stop into an open-invite party for a glass of champagne with friends and toast the waning days of summer.
 
Check out Scandinavia Standard throughout the week for behind-the-scenes runway coverage, fashion week essentials and more.
 
Scandinavia Standard is a website and lifestyle brand providing content on design, culture and local business in the Scandinavian capitals for English-speaking residents and travellers, as well as those interested in the Scandinavian aesthetic internationally.

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FASHION

Paris exhibition celebrates 100 years of French Vogue

A new exhibition in Paris will tell the story of 100 years of French Vogue - from the post-war 'New Look' of Christian Dior through the sexual liberation of the 1960s to the dangling-cigarette waifs of the 2000s.

Published: 7 October 2021 08:21 CEST
French Vogue celebrates 100 years
French Vogue celebrates 100 years. Photo: Thomas Olva/AFP

But as well as celebrating the magazine’s storied history, the exhibit comes at a time of turbulence for the publication.

Just last month, it was confirmed that its editor of 10 years, Emmanuelle Alt, was out and wouldn’t be replaced.

She was not alone.

Looking to cut costs, owner Conde Nast International has axed editors across Europe over the past year, and put international Vogue editions under the direct control of global editorial director, Anna Wintour, in New York.

New York-based Anna Wintour now has overall control of French Vogue. Photo by Christophe ARCHAMBAULT / AFP

Like much of the media industry, Vogue is struggling with tumbling sales and ad revenue in the digital era.

But the latest twist is also part of the endless push and pull between New York and Paris going back to its early days.

“The whole history of French Vogue is one of back-and-forth with Conde Nast in New York – growing more independent for a while, then being reined back in,” said Sylvie Lecallier, curator of the new exhibition, “Vogue Paris 1920-2020″, which opened this weekend after a year’s delay due to the pandemic.

The Paris edition was often the loftier, more bohemian sibling to its more hard-nosed New York version.

But it was also the hotbed in which much of 20th century style and womenhood came to be defined.

“Paris was the place to hunt out talent and content and bring it to New York,” said Lecallier.

The exhibition charts the evolution from art deco drawings of the 1920s through the erotic image-making of photographers like Helmut Newton in the 1960s and 1970s.

Its last peak was under editor Carine Roitfeld in the 2000s, who brought back a provocative Gallic identity by ridding the newsroom of foreign staff and becoming a fashion icon in her own right.

Her successor, Alt, was a quieter presence, though she still oversaw key moments including its first transgender cover star, Brazilian Valentina Sampaio, in 2017.

But internet culture has created “a perfect storm” for Vogue, says media expert Douglas McCabe of Enders Analysis.

“The first 80 years of Vogue’s life, it had the market to itself, it was the bible for fashion,” McCabe told AFP.

“But online today, there are so many other ways to get your information. Influencers, Instagram, YouTube — everyone’s a threat.”

In a world where new fashion trends can blow up around the world in seconds, it has become much harder for a monthly magazine to set the pace.

“It’s not that they can’t survive for another 100 years — but they will be differently sized,” McCabe said.

Vogue has tried to branch out into different areas, including events.

“I used to work for a magazine, and today I work for a brand,” Alt said on the eve of French Vogue’s 1,000th issue in 2019.

But the big money was always in print, and Vogue Paris sales are dropping steadily from 98,345 in 2017 to 81,962 to 2020, according to data site ACPM.

It is perhaps unsurprising that the new top job in Paris, redefined as “head of editorial content”, went to Eugenie Trochu, who was key to building the magazine’s online presence.

She declared herself “thrilled to be part of Vogue’s international transformation”.

For the curator of the exhibition, it is ironic timing.

“We had no idea it would end like this when we started work on the exhibition,” said Lecallier.

“Who knows where it will go from here.”

The exhibition Vogue Paris 1920-2020 is at the Palais Galliera in Paris’ 16th arrondissement. The gallery is open 10am to 6pm Tuesday to Sunday and is closed on Mondays. Tickets for the exhibition are €14 (€12 for concessions and under 18s go free) and must be reserved online in advance. 

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